Moviemaker Spotlight: Bill Prouty

Bill Prouty is a Minneapolis-based filmmaker. His thrilling chase film TAG pits a cyclist against a super-skilled rollerblader on the streets of London. You wouldn’t know it, but Bill says the piece was a totally guerilla production, filmed by hanging off the backs of busses, clinging to a motorcycle and skating along side the action. “All very dangerous,” he says, “but no serious injuries to speak of.”
Bill, a cyclist and skater himself, says he shot the piece to see the interplay of speed and agility, skating and biking. The movie is packed with shots of skillful riding, set against an urban backdrop with a dirty, grainy feel as the biker chases the rollerblader.

He found his two stars on the streets of London. Dave, the skater, was well known for overheating his bearings doing 60mph on alpine switchbacks. Bills says he heard that and immediately knew he had his man. Khaled is an actual courier and the central biker in the movie, “He is a powerful rider” says Bill. “He brought his own strong sense of style to the project. If it hadn’t have been for him, I definitely wouldn’t have found the Filmed By Bike festival, and might not even have had the motivation to finish the project.”

Khaled currently lives in Vancouver, B.C. and will be coming to Portland for the festival.

So what’s next for Bill? At the moment he’s working on a few commercials, writing a stage play, and working on a few film scripts, one of which, he says, “involves bike messengers but will hopefully be better than Quicksilver.”